According to a new hypothesis, it turns out that in the process of domesticating dogs, we might have actually been affecting some of their stem cells.In a dog embryo, there’s a group of stem cells called the neural crest. And these cells are responsible for forming a specific set of physical features — like the dog’s coat, and the structure of its face, and its adrenal glands. …The earliest dogs may have been less aggressive because they had smaller adrenal glands.So when early humans bred for tameness, the dogs probably also ended up with changes to other traits that are controlled by the neural crest — like floppy ears, and the faces with more juvenile features, such as smaller jaws. So basically, by domesticating dogs, we may have ended up selecting for mutations in their stem cells that made them less like wolves and more like the animal that’s probably sleeping in your living room right now.

In his eye-popping photo series Yiwu Commodity City, photographer Richard John Seymour captures the overwhelming abundance of consumer goods found at China Commodity City, a sprawling complex in Yiwu, China that is the world’s largest small commodities market. The 43-million-square-foot(!) market is full of cramped booths occupied by wholesalers of toys, artificial flowers, apparel, and all manner of Chinese-produced goods. There are an astonishing 62,000 booths at the market.

The books become both reference and raw material for sculptures, paper installations and digital animation. The books, sentences, words and letters become elements of a new visual narrative in which the old and new forms co-exist. Through the act of altering books and other paper based objects the intention is to draw emphasis to our understanding of history as mediated through text or language and our understanding of the abstract terms of science through metaphor.

In her 2014 experimental design project Edible Growth, designer Chloé Rutzerveld has created a 3D-printed edible morsel using a combination of technical and natural processes. The morsel is grown inside a 3D-printed edible structure, with plants and fungi sprouting out after about five days. The rapid-manufactured nature of the food limits environmental impact by shortening the food chain and limiting land and energy use. The food is nutritious because it is grown from natural ingredients using natural processes including photosynthesis and fermentation. And since it is intended for immediate consumption, no preservatives are needed.

According to Rutzerveld, it will take 8 to 10 years of additional technological development before a 3D-printed food product like hers will be on the market. Rutzerveld developed the project in collaboration with Eindhoven University of Technology and TNO.

Hank Green explains the thermodynamics that cause tongues to stick to flagpoles in the winter in a recent episode of SciShow. It’s the saliva on the tongue that freezes when it comes into contact with materials like metal that are good thermal conductors.

In the episode, Green also discourages viewers from licking things regardless of the season.